Various medical patients, such as quadriplegics, exhibit involuntary control over their bladder and related functions, such as bowel evacuation. Although vesicostomy or artificial sphincter implanted around the urethra are commonly used to provide partial control over the evacuation function of the bladder and continence, these solutions have drawbacks well known to those skilled in the medical profession and arts. Other patients who achieve a modicum of control over their bladder functions are equally in need of a system to rehabilitate their nerve and muscle dysfunctions.
Applicants are unaware of any prior art that suggests a method and system wherein electrodes are precisely positioned on critical nerves and in various combinations on a particular patient for physiologically stimulating the nerves in a preselected manner for the purpose of controlling the continence and evacuation of a bladder, or for stimulating such nerves to correct a dysfunction by neurostimulation. Applicants are also unaware of any successful operative procedure that further includes the identification of various levels and components of such critical nerve fibers and their selective separation and/or isolation for the purpose of controlling muscle contractions and pain impulses.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,406,288 discloses a system that purportedly conditions pelvic floor musculature by means of neurostimulation for the purpose of controlling urinary loss. Such system includes excitation apparatus for applying electrical pulses to electrodes implanted in the abdominal region or to a plug positioned in an anus. The plug contacts the sphincter muscle of the anus for the alleged purpose of inhibiting bladder contraction in response to excitation of the plug. U.S. Pat. No. 3,941,136 discloses a similar system.